October 21, 2015
An update for my Pogonomyrmex occidentalis colony. They are still doing quite well and continue to expand the nest and the colony. Still haven't seen the queen, but plenty of evidence that she is in there somewhere due to the ever increasing size of the colony and brood. There has been a bit of a die-off over the last 2-4 weeks or so. I have cleaned out roughly 50 workers over that time frame. Not sure if it is natural die-off or if I fed them a bad fly or something??

calrodrigz wrote:Ooper, would an Omni Nest Vertical setup be an ideal formicarium for a Pogonomyrmex species? I've been told that a glass/acrylic/plastic setup is not recommended, but I'd like a second opinion.

My best experience thus far with P. occidentalis has been soil formicariums, as evidenced by this colony. These gals just really like to dig. They even dig tunnels in the shallow sand I have in the second out world in this setup.

With the other species I keep (Formica, Camponotus, Monomorium) they seem to be okay with acrylic/plastic nesting space with attached out world.

March 28, 2016
I brought this colony out of hibernation about a month ago, by turning on the heat cable again. It wasn't much of a hibernation as far as temperature goes, but they did take a break. They slowed down overall and the queen stopped producing. Over the past month she has begun again and there is quite a large brood throughout the nest.

I am in the process of building a larger soil nest for them as the colony is now estimated to be around 300 members. Hopefully within the next month or so I will have pictures/video of their new setup.

Here is a poor-quality time lapse of a cricket-feeding. I hope to improve my time-lapse skills soon I didn't leave the time-lapse running long enough to show them carrying the cricket into the nest. It had been going for 30-45 minutes and being my first time-lapse attempt, I wasn't sure how long of a video it would be or if it were even working properly.

April 15, 2016
I finished the new soil formicarium! I'm happy with how it turned out. It is 18" x 36" with a 1/2" spacing between the two acrylic panels for the ants to create their nest. I documented through videos some of the things I went through during the build process. Have a look if you are interested.